


dust from a distant sun

by SNAKEHABITATTURNAROUND



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, WALKED INTO THE ROOM YOU KNOW YOU MADE MY EYES BURN, WHITE SHIRT, blue jeans, brits 2014, i guess, inverse conjecture, sad in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SNAKEHABITATTURNAROUND/pseuds/SNAKEHABITATTURNAROUND
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>how to love someone even when you're done loving them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dust from a distant sun

**Author's Note:**

> _still so young to travel so far_   
> _old enough to know who you are_   
> _wise enough to carry the scars_   
> _without any blame, there's no one to blame_   
> _it's easy to forget what you learned_   
> _waiting for the thrill to return_   
> _feeling your desire burn_   
> _you're drawn to the flame_

When you’re in love with someone, and you want to kiss them all the time, and you’re never quite certain how intensely they feel the same except you know they feel it coming in waves off you and they haven’t refused it, they love you too, and you’re pressed against the kitchen counter in the flat you share and you’re laughing together about dinner, but you can’t - outside these walls, outside this bus, outside this hotel room, outside this rectangle of energy you live in you can’t say anything, and it’s quiet, quiet, quiet, and you’re young, how are you supposed to —

That was what his mum would say when she was most distressed about whatever problem they’d come up against that week. “But you’re so young, darling,” her eyes a bit watery. “I don’t feel it,” he’d whisper to Louis in a bed in Dallas, or Berlin, or Tokyo. “Well that’s upsetting to hear, since it’s just been in you,” Louis would say, and Harry’d cackle and throw his legs over Louis’ and yell, “No, young! Young! I don’t feel young! Do you feel young?” And Louis’ resultant smirk, and his assertion that no, he felt like someone who’d just had a very nice time in Harry Styles, thanks, and Harry leaping at him, twisting, “Heyyy!”, an excuse to press his body up against Louis’ again.

But he was young then. Comparatively. He was never so young as he was then with Louis, asleep in their bungalow bed, grinning into Louis’ shoulder. How long has it been since he was able to love Louis within the established boundaries. Over a year now, basically, since they stopped. Not - give up, he would never - and he knows he will always be in love with Louis Tomlinson, to some extent, and he still thinks, on some deep dark level, that maybe one day they’ll come back to each other, ready, even though he also knows on a more enlightened one that that isn’t right. They’ll never be those selves again. 

You can’t love anyone that way for a long time. It doesn’t make sense. It was too much - it had been what saved him, and maybe Louis too underneath the capering, their born leader, so bright and so strong. When you have a guiding star why look anywhere else. Why think about anything else. But he did - they both did, eventually - and found it was too much but it wasn’t enough. It was the most real thing but it was burning away everything else that was more real, things that were  _allowed_  to be real. And they were getting older. And they had to stop.

So the factor that had so prolonged this - the necessary closeness, around each other to enact distilled, spotlit versions of themselves every night on small buses and planes and in huge arenas and crowds - became their hardest obstacle. Being apart together. Of course Louis escaped, of course he ran away, of course he said nothing. But the contrast still felt like shit. Absence where there was once such strong presence. Cold air instead of warm hands. Even at its awful peak he did an okay job of disguising it; fine on stage, then off it with his headphones in -  _said you had to leave to start your life over I was like no please, stay here, we don’t need no money we can make it all work_  —

And it’s all right now and it was all right then, because he’s got Nick and that whole group, and Lou and Ben and Gem, and for the first time since he was sixteen he feels like maybe he could be a separate entity, like when he’s alone he’s alone, and he can go to LA and drive around and be a person. Nick makes it look so easy to be normal in the midst of abnormality, that’s why everyone loves him instead of resenting him, the voice of the people - it’s calming to be near him. It’s nice, and it’s civilised and it’s relaxing, and he’s an adult. He can do what he wants. The boys are still there, obviously, and their Whatsapp group flashes regularly with pictures and chat; he still feels connected to them and he always will. He’s excited for the tour. He’s glad he and Louis are talking more easily now and can sit next to each other without a shrieking yammer going off in his brain, and Louis, for his part, doesn’t fidget and move the second Harry gets anywhere close.

The simple fact is that all this isn’t going to last. He knows they say it will, and he’s arguably the one who says it loudest. But even as much as he loves the four of them purely, cellularly, he knows that it’s not going to go on forever, because a part of it already ended long ago. Of all people he understands that truths change with time. They’ll never get this back, but he’s still hopeful the next step will be good. It won’t be all faded reminiscing. It won’t —

And then he’s finally there, the longest, sharpest run of his life, and he’s bounded up to the platform, hair brushed back, lights in his eyes, a little rueful but it’ll be okay, just wishes he’d realised what was going on. His head snaps to Louis, who knows, and has always known. “What did we win?” he whispers, forgetting - or maybe remembering? - for just a second.

**Author's Note:**

> angst. we were talkin bout angst. and there is so MUCH OF IT but not enough. here ya go, a tiny crumb, was that okay?
> 
> ([space-bakery](http://space-bakery.tumblr.com) if you want to yell)


End file.
